I often find that I can't read scores as I'm listening to classical music because the lack of observing soft dynamic markings drives me crazy.

I have no problem with disregarding the markings so long as musicians find an equivalent solution. What bothers me is when the markings seem to go completely unacknowledged. And there is nothing that goes unacknowledged as often as the dreaded p or pp marking. If a composer does what Verdi does and puts down ppppp we can usually get it down to p or pp.